Written Answers Friday 21 October 2005

Scottish Executive

Domestic Abuse

Mrs Margaret Ewing (Moray) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what measures and actions it has implemented to ensure that victims of domestic violence are at less risk of being abused again.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Scottish Executive’s strategic approach to domestic abuse focuses around the themes of protection, prevention and provision. All three themes contribute not only to stopping abuse occurring but also to tackling repeat incidents.

  For example we have committed over £34.5 million between 2000 and 2006 to support organisations working with women and children and young people who have experienced domestic abuse or other violence. We are piloting a domestic abuse court in Glasgow in order to provide a swift and effective justice response and support for victims. We support programmes that work with perpetrators to challenge and change offending behaviour and are developing accreditation of existing programmes. We are rolling out the domestic abuse training strategy to ensure consistent and high quality services from all public agencies. We continue to develop our hard hitting awareness raising campaign to make clear the unacceptability of domestic abuse.

  We will continue to take whatever steps are necessary to end domestic abuse in Scotland.

General Practitioners

Mr Stewart Maxwell (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many patients have been treated by the GP out-of-hours service since 1 April 2004, broken down by NHS board.

Mr Stewart Maxwell (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how much has been paid to doctors working in the GP out-of-hours service since 1 April 2004, broken down by NHS board.

Mr Andy Kerr: This information is not held centrally by the department.

  Under the nGMS contract, NHS boards have the responsibility to provide out-of-hours care in the community and this information is therefore held at NHS board level.

NHS Staff

Roseanna Cunningham (Perth) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many current consultant vacancies there are across all specialities in each NHS board.

Mr Andy Kerr: Information on staff in post in NHS Scotland is published on the Scottish Health Statistics website under Workforce Statistics, at www.isdscotland.org/workforce .

  Section B gives details of medical staff employed in NHS Scotland. In particular, table B11 and B12 shows the whole-time equivalent (WTE) and headcount number of consultant vacancies, broken down by NHS board area. WTE adjusts headcount staff figures to take account of part-time staff. Latest available figures are at 30 September 2004.